Following different delays that Valve Steam Machine project had, Dell has decided to still launch its version under its Alienware brand, as the Alienware Alpha mini-PC which is now shipping, just in time for Christmas.


Today we are glad to see the first Steam Machine shipping, or at least Dell's vision of it, the Alienware Alpha mini-PC. While it does not run on Valve's SteamOS, the Alpha is still a decent little living room gaming system running on Windows 8.1 OS and paired up with the Alpha UI GUI which looks a lot like the Big Picture mode in Steam, only coated with fresh red color.

The base configuration will start at US $549 and pack an Intel Core i3-4310T dual-core at 2.9GHz paired up with 4 GB of DDR3L-1600 memory, a GTX 860M graphics card with 2 GB of GDDR5 video memory, a 500 GB HDD and an Xbox 360 gamepad. While the base configuration might not be the most powerful one around, the Alpha mini-PC can be upgraded to an Intel Core i7-4765T quad-core at 3 GHz, up to 8 GB of RAM and 1 or 2 TB of storage.

Unfortunately, there is no option for a more powerful graphics card, like for example a desktop GPU and there is no SSD option. This makes the Alienware Alpha mini-PC a fairly light machine and far off from what gamers expect from a gaming PC.

The Alienware Alpha mini-PC is on sale as of today in the USA, while Europe should get it in time for Christmas.





Source: Dell.com.